Development and Testing of the Variable Vertical Resolution Fourth Order GCM

The vertical coordinate of the Fourth Order Model has been generalized so that the model can now run with an arbitrary number of vertical layers and so that the thicknesses of these layers can be arbitrarily specified (in the sigma coordinate). This Variable Vertical Resolution (VVR) version of the Fourth Order Model will soon replace the current production model. To assess the skill of the VVR model, it has been run with 9 equally spaced layers and compared with the current production model. In two Northern Hemispheric winter cases and one summer case, the two models were virtually identical in forecast skill for 6 to 7 days. After that the VVR model was slightly better in the winter cases and the production model was slightly better in the summer case. The only exception to this was that after 2 days the production model gave slightly more skillful 500 mb forecasts in the tropics for the summer case.